


"your scars make you you."

by m4kiroll



Series: femslash february 2021 prompts!! [13]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Before getting together, F/F, Femslash February, Fluff, Insecurity, Scars, implied mutual pining, this ship is so cute i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29618277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m4kiroll/pseuds/m4kiroll
Summary: “your scars make you you! and i love everything about you, maki!”(or, kaede convinces maki that every inch of her is beautiful — including the scars she frowns upon.)
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Harukawa Maki
Series: femslash february 2021 prompts!! [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2139279
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	"your scars make you you."

**Author's Note:**

> **day thirteen: beautiful**

It was rare to see Maki without her long sleeves and her thigh-high red socks, but when isolated in her dorm room, it was nearly never among her wardrobe.

The thing about the Hope’s Peak dorm rooms was that they were hot. It was fantastic when it was winter and freezing, but it was anything but when it was a scorching summer day or a humid spring day. However, seeing as how it was June, and the air conditioning had just broken, Maki was quick to strip down to just a tank top and shorts.

She had shut off the lights in her room — it was past curfew, after all, and she’d rather not get detention for not being in bed during nighttime if one of the class representatives so happened to be out of bed and walking about. However, she still wasn’t tired enough to drag herself into bed and eventually lull herself to sleep, so she just sat in front of her full-length mirror, staring at her reflection. Part of her wished she hadn’t completed her homework earlier in the day, so she’d have _something_ to do, or even get a job from the cult to complete for an excuse to sneak out and do something.

Glancing to her pager, which had been tossed onto her bed, Maki couldn’t stop the light sigh that fell from her lips; whenever she’d get a job, the pager would vibrate obnoxiously to alert her. Currently, the pager lay on her bed still and silently, devoid of any assassinations that needed to be carried out.

At this point in her life, Maki couldn’t tell if wanting to be out and doing her job of killing threats, celebrities, politicians, gang members, world leaders, rogue cult members, and detectives who got too close to discovering the truth behind the Holy Salvation Society made her either bloodthirsty or too well-adjusted to her role as the Ultimate Assassin. 

Before Maki became the Ultimate Assassin, she didn’t have any scars on her body. Only a beauty Mark stood underneath her left eye; since then, an array of scars adorned her body. Most were from her assassin training, a few from when missions went horribly wrong. The newest was from an attempted assassination years ago — it wasn’t performed by her, but rather a fellow assassin sent out by the cult leaders to “test her sharpness” in the field spontaneously.

Frankly, her scars were hideous reminders of how she was not the Ultimate Child Caregiver she had led her peers to believe, but rather the assassin who got branded when failed. Across her back, legs, arms, chest, and even stomach, Maki’s scars lay there innocently, and it made Maki’s throat dry at the realization of it. 

  
Tracing a finger across one of the older ones; it was a scar with two slashes a part of it, shaped into a large _X_ — the memory of what had caused that particular one had long escaped her — along the inside of her thigh, having gone faint with time.

Taking a shuddering breath, Maki forced herself to tear her eyes away from her myriad of scars. The very last thing she wanted was to fall back into another one of her loops where she’d just _stare_ at her scars with shame and disgust, craving to peel them off of her skin with one of her switchblades she kept in her room. With a defeated sigh, Maki rose, moving to turn on the lights again. 

The darkened room immediately illuminated with light, making Maki pointedly looking away from the mirror as best as she could. With an additional sigh, the assassin turned to a bookshelf, rummaging around her collection of books before pulling out a single one — _Romance Music for Dummies_. The title may have been a bit deprecating, though the look of amusement on Kaede’s face when she had handed the book to her made Maki refer back to the book several times. Though she herself did not understand, nor particularly enjoy, romantic music, she tried to immerse herself into the era for Kaede’s sake. 

A knock came from the door, interrupting Maki’s memory of the event. With another short sigh, Maki stood, already making her way to the door.

She had forgotten her circumstances, and as soon as she felt the cool air of the hallway hit her bare skin in contrast to the heat of her room, she regretted not waiting a moment to assess her situation. 

As if summoned by her thoughts, there stood Kaede Akamatsu, one of the four students at Hope’s Peak who knew of her real talent. Excluding herself, both the Ultimate Detectives — Kirigiri from the 78th class and Saihara from their own, the 79th — as well as the weasel named Ouma. The brat had snuck into her Research Lab, expecting to find an abundance of stuffed animals or baby bottles (or whatever it was actual Ultimate Child Caregivers were expected to have) when he had sought out a hiding place from a ticked off Chabashira, but one could imagine his surprise when he snuck past a Maki who had her door open _just_ a crack to slip out and came face to face with weapons of all shapes and sizes, targets, and a large, red Robin Hood-esque hood displayed dramatically — her assassination outfit, of course. 

Amazingly, Ouma had agreed to keep his mouth shut (with the help of convincing with the headmaster, of course), but only under the condition that she told her friends eventually. An odd request, but nonetheless, Maki told Kaede, who took the news just as well as one would expect. Total shock, of course, and right when Maki had expected Kaede to tell her to leave or call her a monster or a cold-hearted murderer or _something_ , all the pianist had done was wrap her arms around her, thank Maki for trusting her enough, and promise to help her get out of the cult’s grasps. 

A foolish and unattainable promise, but a noble one nonetheless. 

“Harukawa-san, why are you still up? It’s one in the morning,” the blonde frowns, inviting herself in. Maki shuts the door after her, sealing the cold air back out — despite the humidity in her room, she had felt goosebumps creep up her legs and arms. 

“You’re up, too,” Maki points out. 

“H-hey! This is about you, not me! And anyway, I was just going to get a glass of water because I was thirsty, and I noticed your light was on. Are you having trouble falling asleep?”

Avoiding the question, Maki raises an eyebrow. “And why were you thirsty?”

Kaede blushed, embarrassed. “I haven’t drunk anything since dinner and I’ve been playing the piano since classes ended…” 

For whatever reason, Maki found herself completely unsurprised, if a little concerned at her lack of hydration. 

Wordlessly, Maki crossed over to a large mini-fridge (though it wasn’t so much as a mini-fridge as it was a regular fridge that was short a foot) in her closet, bringing out a single water bottle and tossing it to the blonde. Kaede fumbles, just barely catching the plastic bottle that had been tossed with no warning but didn’t forget to shoot a grateful smile to Maki as she unscrewed the cap. 

“Jeez, why do you have all of this in here, anyway? What’s next, rations and matches?” Kaede teases, taking a sip of her water. 

Still silent, Maki moves some things around in her closet before wordlessly raising a can of dried peaches from what was sure to be her large collection. 

Gaping, Kaede leans forward to get a better look at Maki’s collection. Sure enough, a large ensemble of rations was stacked and organized accordingly. 

“Woah, does Tojo-san know about this? And what happens if they’re expired? Or do you toss them out before they expire?” Kaede blurts out, reaching forward to grab another package. This time, a bag of trail mix is brought forth. 

“I’m sure she does,” Maki replies coolly. “And I mark the expiration dates on the calendar, and a week before it hits the date, I drop them off at the orphanage. The kids run through this much in that amount of time.” 

“Then why do you have them in here?” Kaede asks, feeling her brow furrow. “Wouldn’t it be more… _practical_ to just collect them from the kitchen?” 

“You asked what I do with them when it comes to expiration, not what’s more practical,” Maki points out shortly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “And besides, I keep them here for other reasons; I just never end up fulfilling them.”

“And what _are_ those reasons?” Kaede asks, more intrigued than before. Something about Maki made even the most arbitrary and seemingly irrelevant things seem mysterious and in desperate need of unraveling. 

“...I think you know,” Maki mutters, turning away. She’s tempted to play with her hair, but instead, she undoes her pigtails, letting them fall down her back in a feeble attempt to hide her scars. 

“Harukawa-san…” Kaede says softly, placing her hand on Maki’s shoulder. If she notices the brunette’s involuntary flinch, she doesn’t say so but instead curls her fingers more firmly onto her shoulder. “You aren’t your talent —”

“Easy for _you_ to say,” Maki scoffs quietly. “You’re Akamatsu Kaede, the Ultimate Pianist. You’re within the top three piano players of all time, you know that?”

Kaede blushed at the words, knowing she was referring to an article that had been published weeks ago. Despite the time gap, the words still made her cheeks glow red. 

“And, besides that, you’re a… people person,” Maki continues, pausing as if she had forgotten the term. However, judging by her grimace, Kaede thought differently. “People _like_ you. If they found out _you_ were the Ultimate Assassin, no one would distrust you, not even a little bit. But when they find out about my actual Ultimate, it’ll be training all over again,”

“Training?” Kaede asks, perking up at the mention of it. She knew a few details about Maki’s training to become an assassin — none of which were pretty, granted, but she still wanted Maki to trust her as best as she could with the ups and many downs of her past. 

“Yeah, training,” Maki echoed. By the impassivity in her voice, one would think her training was for something non-threatening rather than the brutal hours she spent learning to be a proficient assassin. “You know, all alone?”

“What do you mean by ‘all alone?’” Kaede frowns. 

“During training, the assassins only had their own well-being in mind, myself included. I’d have to bandage my own wounds and clean up my own messes, but at Hope’s Peak, I actually had friends. There’s Saihara-kun, who’s digging up information on the cult in some attempt to finally overthrow them, there’s Momota-kun, who has blind and idiotic trust and me, and there’s you.”

“And you’ll still have us when everyone else finds out,” Kaede says, removing her hand off of Maki’s shoulder and grabbing her hands gently. 

“It’s not _you_ I’m concerned about,” Maki says shortly. “You three follow me around like lost puppies,”

“Rude,” Kaede snorts.

“Anyway, none of them will trust me again,” Maki finishes, looking down. “They’ll take one look at me and see me in a different light.”

Inconspicuously, Maki glanced down at a few of her scars, tracing one of them delicately. Kaede’s eyes are immediately drawn to them, despite the brunette’s attempt at subtlety, and she frowns once again. 

“Maki,” she whispers, startling the girl in question. Maki looked up faster than a bolt of lightning, possibly pulling a muscle in her neck, and immediately her face broke out into a vivid blush at the use of her given name. 

Before Maki could interject (“ _Do you want to die?!_ ”), Kaede continues on. “Your scars are beautiful, and you are, too. If you wanted to hurt us, you would have already done it. They’ll trust you, I promise. If not immediately, they will eventually! You just have to believe in yourself!”

“Sh-shut up…” Maki stammers, still bright red. “... You really think so?”

She pointed down to one of her scars — one that stretched inches across her leg — with a scowl, glaring harshly at the scar.

“Yes,” the pianist assured honestly. “Your scars make you _you!_ And I love everything about you, Maki!”

Saying nothing, Maki pouted and turned away, not wanting to blush even more.

“Whatever,” she mumbles, her voice wavering. Kaede beams. “Are you going to keep bothering me or are you going to spend the night?”

The blonde chuckles, used to her friend’s snappish nature. “I guess I’ll stay,”

“...Thanks, Kaede,” Maki mutters, before turning away to her closet, searching for a sleeping bag. 

Kaede smiled warmly in the direction Maki had retreated to; Maki was one of the most beautiful girls she had met, both inside and out as corny as it was, and she was determined to full-heartedly convince her she was beautiful by the time they graduated, and she figured she’d get a headstart during their unofficial sleepover. 

“Don’t mention it,” the pianist says, smiling to Maki, who gave an unsure and small smile back. 

She’d definitely convince her.

**Author's Note:**

> so i kind of got really busy with school and setting up courses for high school and had no free time to write or edit my drafts so. here we are!! it's more than a week late but it's here
> 
> i won't be writing for femslash february for the rest of this month since i have to go back to my schedule for my kaimaki heathers au, but i'll try to post the prompts i missed out on periodically throughout march and april <3 thank u to everyone who read one of my femslash february oneshots!!


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